crowspace | this can only go well

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this can only go well

THE 'TRUE SELF' MEME(inspired by Persona 4)

"In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts."

Everyone has another side to them that they keep hidden away, feelings they bottle up to save face or avoid conflict. But what if those feelings take a life of their own...?

Perhaps it's your best friend, a close family member, a hated enemy, or maybe it's just a complete stranger. No matter who it is, they are different now, possessing creepy yellow eyes, a distorted voice, and a disconcerting aura. Take care in what you say to them, though, because there are three little words that will set them off into an unstoppable rage...

How to:
Step 1: Post as your character with their name and canon
Step 2: Others respond stumbling onto your character
Step 3: WHOOPS. Character A has been replaced by their Shadow or Other Self!
Step 4: Play out the encounter! Will you start an epic boss fight? Have a pleasant chat? Or maybe just flat out ignore them? Run wild!

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You were poisoned! You were specifically targeted and harmed. There were so many people who could have seen it coming, who could have stopped it, but once again the only people to blame in that situation are the ones who caused it. [She's raised her voice a little now. Has her father been thinking this all this time? He always seemed so strong and so sure of himself, this guilt and doubt had never shown before. At the very least, not in her presence.]

What happened to Wadanohara was a tragedy. [More so, what became of her.] But it's Sal [She said the name like a curse] and his companions who are wholly responsible.

Not you.

We lived with Sal for about as long as you've been alive, my dear. I had plenty of time to see past his act, plenty of time when I could have wrung his neck without problems. The poison has nothing to do with it.

Wadanohara is a shell of her former self. Most of our friends are dead. For the longest time I thought you were, too, or that I'd come back and meet your husk.

And the only people I even tried to help when I came back were you and your mother, before I abandoned my home of two hundred years. I really do wonder where people are getting this 'kind' thing from.

They are getting kind from many things. [She steps forward, lips pursed. She knows there something more going on here than her father condemning herself, but like hell she's going to idly ignore that.]

So many people wouldn't even care. They would happily point fingers away from themselves. So many people with many more opportunities to have intervened wouldn't have bothered. So many people would be utterly unaffected by what happened, other than to care about their own material losses.

[It hurts to think about everything he's saying. It almost brings tears to her eyes to remember all the faces of the friends they had lost...Aom...but she can't let him carry this pain on his own. He doesn't deserve that.]

...you're there for people, dad. You're patient with them. You're empathetic, when so many others wouldn't even try.

I. I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't been able to return to you and mother. I probably wouldn't be. You two are the ones that give me strength and you've never been anything other than loving and patient and supportive when I know other people would have given up.

Just look at everyone else, too. Sigrun, Mettaton, Ryuunosuke, and the other people you've told me about. They aren't fools.

Aren't they?

[Cherryblod's eyes narrow to golden slits.]

Sigrun: betrayed by someone she cared about, and even after I told myself I wouldn't go against a child of mine again, the regret was too much - I still stood against her trying to find 'the truth'.

Mettaton: the architect of the murder game, and I couldn't see that. I couldn't even see how badly he was suffering. I took everything he told me at face value when I knew he was a liar.

Ryuunosuke: if it hadn't been for Mettaton, he wouldn't be alive right now. I know that and so does he. Is it a kind thing to make someone live this way, under constant watch just for someone else's survival?

Yosuke: I risked his life trying to save Mettaton's, a son who had never done me wrong for a son who had nearly gotten us all killed. He could have died and it would have been directly because of me.

Can you really say how wonderful of a father I am?

...

[She's stares at him for a moment, unsure of what to say. Not because she has lost any conviction of her words, but because there is still a lot of details she doesn't know about the ordeal her father went through, nor how to articulate the things she wants to communicate.

It's so hard seeing him like this. Cruel as his expression and disposition may be, she still feels that above all her father is hurting in a way she had never seen, nor suspected. She bites her lips and closes the rest of the distance between them, reach out to take one of his hands into hers.]

I don't want to say hallow words on how you conducted yourself in there when I don't know the whole story...but can anyone really be said to have made the right choices all the time? The situation you were tossed into was something extreme--something out of science novels or movies---who could know how to act in them.

But you're doing your best. That's all anyone can do.

Results are all that matter in life, my dear. If my child had died because of me, he'd still be dead, despite my doing my best.

[His voice sounds even more mocking when he's paraphrasing her.

But he doesn't let go of her hand.]

[...he's never spoken to her in that tone. Most everyone else has, but not him, and it hurts.]

Intent doesn't absolve everything, but it is something. Either way, if results are the only thing that matters you made the right decision, right? Because of you no one died.

"No one died." How funny.

[He laughs, low and dark. Blood begins to drip from between his teeth.]

I have more blood on my hands than anyone in that Vault. I don't care about any of them, not in specific - they're strangers to me - but the numbers, my dear daughter, are not ones you'd like to hear.

And I haven't told you because I'm afraid you'll hate me. Abandon me. No matter how orange my soul might be, I'm still a coward, in the end.

[What was going on?! Her own free hand went to her mouth in shock as the bright red blood began to spill from his mouth. There was too much that was going on and she just couldn't understand any of it.

What was happening to him? Why was he speaking this way? Just what did he mean about killing people? It was beyond her comprehension...her father killing people? Perhaps in defense, but she somehow suspects that's not how he means it.]

D-dad you. You're hurt. We should do something about that first. [She can't even wrap her head around what he's said just yet to respond to that.]

Oh, no, I'm just fine. I've always been fine.

You should worry about yourself, first.

[Blood continues down his face, staining his lips a darker red.]

You're clearly not. You're bleeding! [And she's getting more upset.] You're acting unlike yourself. And your eyes.

[They weren't the familiar shade of red. They didn't hold to gentleness and love she knew.]

Oh - I didn't tell you? Maybe I should have said earlier.

I am a Shadow - the true self. I'm what your dear Father is really like, underneath the mask.

[His grip on her hand tightens, just a bit.]

[Her furrows in confusion and she tenses a little when he tightens his grip. Her eyes fall to their joined hands nervously and she pulls just a tiny bit.

She doesn't really get this, having been something she's never run into or read about before. A part of her is relieved that her actual father isn't hurt but if what he says is true he's still a part of her father.

Which means she's still worried. At the very least it's not some enchantment on him but.]

Then where is he?

Around.

[Helpful. He doesn't let go of her hand, and his grip is stronger than her pulling.]

He's not dead yet, if that's what you're asking.

[Lobco is trying to keep calm but it's more than a little difficult to do. Even if he is a Shadow and not the father that raised her, he still has his face, and while a lot of the things he is saying are things she never saw before they make sense. So to see him like this, with blood still dripping from his mouth is shaking her.

More than anything, however, it's that 'yet' that scares her.]

He's not going to be! [She snaps that out and now tries to wrench her hand free.] Where is he?!

[Finally, he lets go of her, smirk only growing wider.]

Now why would I want to tell you a thing like that?

[She's not proud of herself for losing her temper like that, but her family is her one of her feel buttons. She purses her lips and drops her arms to her side, composing herself as best as she can.

There's a lot more she wants to ask him, but now that she knows it's not really her father it seems...wrong. She wants to hear this all from him, with his consent. Not from a fragment of him, that she's sure has been warped in some way.]

So that I can hear this all from him. I'm going to find him with or without your guidance.

Just why are you even here?

[Considering what he just said, Lobco has a pretty good idea, but that at least she wants to know.]

I'm here to make him accept me. Admit to what he's been hiding, and what he denies.

If he can do that, then everything will be just fine. If not...

[Lobco can figure that out herself.]

[...yea, she can. And she's not gonna let that happen. Either she'll help her father do what he was to, or she'll protect him. Either way she's not going to let anything happen to him.]

I see.

[...]

[It's weird now knowing this is a separate entity from her father, even if it reflects that which he keeps hidden. She feels like she should stay, even though she knows she shouldn't. She also feels like she should say something more and she considers for a moment. Perhaps it won't mean much to say this to him, but she will.]

I don't know what you're hiding, but I'll love you all the same.

You shouldn't promise that before you know what you're getting into, my dear, sweet daughter.

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